Chapter XXIII: Diplomacy

Instead of making the big noise our hero, deserted by his confederate, was using all his finesse not to attract the attention of the sauntering cop. At the corner Cartwright paused, glanced about, then crossed and strolled along a few yards behind Hervey. The official was quite unconcerned, but Hervey’s guilty conscience told him that he was pursued. If he looked around or started to run, disaster might ensue. So he kept up the air of a respectable home-going citizen and did it to perfection.

He might have been a Boy Scout carrying some one’s satchel as a good turn. He heard a voice behind him and feared it might be the outraged band member heading a posse to recover his instrument. Whoever it was, the person walked with the policeman and spoke of the weather.

Coming to his own house, Hervey opened the gate and felt relieved to be within the fenced enclosure. The gravel walk with its bordering whitewashed stones seemed to welcome him to safety. It was characteristic, oh how characteristic of Hervey, that he was not in the least troubled about how he was to return the satchel to its unknown owner. His only concern was his immediate safety. He would not lay it down to be lost to its owner. And he could not seek the hapless victim without giving himself away. So he entered the house cautiously, went upstairs and laid the satchel in his own apartment, then descended to the living room where his step-parents sat reading beside the marble center table. He had overstepped his time by about fifteen minutes, but Mr. Walton seemed never disposed to quibble about small infringements.

“I was at the store,” said Hervey.

“They busy?”

“Sure, people buying things for school. Grouchy Greenway was in, he bought a lot of homework paper--pity the fellers in the third grade. Ruth Binney’s scared of that ladder that rolls along--oh bimbo, that’s my middle name. I can take a running jump and ride it all the way to the back of the store.” He did not mention that he played the harmonica for the girls to dance; he was a good sport and did not tell tales out of school.

“I think Ruth and Annie Terris will miss you when you go to Montana,” said Mr. Walton playfully.

“Such nonsense,” said Mrs. Walton. “Don’t put those ideas back into his head.”

“I may go sooner than you think,” said Hervey.

He stood in the doorway to the dining room, pausing before making his late evening attack on the apple barrel. A blithe, carefree figure he seemed, his eyes full of a kind of gay madness. One rebellious lock of hair sprawled over his forehead as he suddenly pulled off his outlandish hat in deference to his stepmother. He never remembered to do this as a regular duty; he remembered each time separately, and then with lightning inspiration. He could not for the life of him adapt his manners or phraseology to his elders.

“You know me, Al,” he said.

“Are you going to wash your face when you go in the kitchen?” Mrs. Walton inquired.

“Sure, is there any pie?” he asked.

They heard him fumbling in the kitchen, then trudging up the stairs.

“I think it would be just as well not to harp on Montana,” said Mrs. Walton. “It’s odd how he hit on Montana.”

“One place is as good as another,” said Mr. Walton. “I’m glad it’s Montana, it costs so much to get there. If he had Harlem in mind, or Coney Island, I might worry.”

“He talks of them both,” said Mrs. Walton. “Yes, but I think his heart is in the big open spaces, where the fare is about a hundred dollars. If it were the Fiji Islands I’d be content.”

“Do you think he’d like to go to Europe with us next summer?” Mrs. Walton asked. “I can’t bear to leave him alone.”

“No, I’m afraid he’d want to dive from the Rock of Gibraltar,” said Mr. Walton. “He’ll be safe at Temple Camp.”

“He seems to have just no balance-wheel,” Mrs. Walton mused. “When I look in his eyes it seems to me as if they saw joys, but never consequences.”

“Sort of near-sighted in a way, eh?”

“I do wish he had stayed in the Scouts, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” said Mr. Walton in a matter-of-fact way. “He didn’t see it. Some day he’ll see it, but it won’t be because anybody tells him. The only way Hervey can learn that a tree is high is for him to fall out of it. That’s what I mean by his being near-sighted in a way.”

“Do you think those railroad workers are a good set?”

“Oh, they’re a good lot; good, strong men.”

“Well, I don’t care for that Hinkey, do you?”

Mr. Walton did not go into raptures over anybody from New York. He was a good New Englander. Nor had he been carried off his feet by the “million dollar theatre.” But being a true New Englander he was fair in judgment and of few words, especially in the field of criticism. His answer to this last question was to resume reading his book.